


In the Cards

by Dwimordene



Category: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Drama, Multi-Age
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-26
Updated: 2009-12-29
Packaged: 2018-04-06 08:30:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 26
Words: 3,922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4214995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dwimordene/pseuds/Dwimordene
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The annual <a href="http://community.livejournal.com/there_n_back/">There 'n Back Again</a> Advent Calendar is based on tarot decks this year. So:<br/><br/>Four lives, five acts, six journeys in twenty-two trumps and three "wild" cards...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Dramatis Personae

**Dramatis Personae: The I at the Center of the World**

The world greenly cups a comfortable life: a great, gay girth that gives him place and name and substance: Fatty.  
  
Her life is a dance through birchwood and breeze, stars swirling overhead, 'til one day, Dawnbreak strikes her still – Lúthien.   
  
Hardbottle is a hard land that sharpens tongues, puts stones in souls. Lobelia feels their sate-less shifting and envies...   
  
He rose resplendent, consubstantial Flame, bright with promise, blind with pride – thus into darkness fell this star, beloved of Ilúvatar.  
  
Earth, Air, Fire, Water – and Spirit their abiding fifth, for all who are play the fool: all believe they're righteous.

* * *

**Notes**

1\. Day 1: Card: The Fool

2."Thus into darkness fell this star" - modified "The Fall of Gil-Galad."  
  
3\. "All who are play the fool: all believe they're righteous" - Joss Whedon attributes this to William Dafoe (well, slightly differently phrased) by way of explaining that every character believes he is the hero of the story.


	2. Smoke and Mirrors

'Twas a night of lights and strangeness – his abiding memory is of lantern light beneath the Party Tree, of fireworks, a speech, then the flash and bang and shocked faces.   
  
And had there been, just ere the outburst of babble, a laughing echo?   
  
Fatty did not know then, and does not know now. But despite the calming teacakes and cordial, all night his stomach had roiled – he'd not sat well with the world.  
  
Something had stirred in him the night that Bilbo Baggins left.   
  
So when an all frowns and secrets Merry appears upon his stoop, he lets him in...

* * *

**Notes** :

1\. Day 2: Card: The Magician


	3. First Freedom

Before Sunbirth, named Melian  
her daunting daughter "Lúthien,"  
and tongue she bound for better days:  
Maternal power sleeping lay.  
  
But with the seasoning of trees  
Her mother's power, in waking dreams,  
In Lúthien, lying prisoner, stirs  
and to her urgent labor spurs.  
  
For although queenly set, enthroned  
betwixt black pillars and whitestone,  
Melian dreams, thoroughfares,  
catches cries – Beren's despair –  
dreams them into daughter's mind,  
bridled by paternal bind.  
  
Thus when wine, water and wheel come,  
Lúthien blesses every one:  
"From Melian", who long ago  
suffered lovèd lover's throes –  
teacher of this heart-lived life,  
that sendeth forth to toil and strife…

* * *

**Notes** :  
  
1.Day 3: Card: The High Priestess

2\. This drabble is based mostly on the Lay of Leithian as presented in "The Lays of Beleriand," rather than the "Silmarillion."  
  
3\. "Before Sunbirth, named Melian  
her daunting daughter "Lúthien,"  
and tongue she bound for better days:  
Maternal power sleeping lay."  
  
Dwim shamelessly references her own drabble: [Innocence](http://www.dwimordenespage.org/index.php?go=7&id=19&chapter=92)  
  
4\. "catches cries - Beren's despair -  
dreams them in her daughter's mind"  
  
From the Lay of Leithian:  
"... And one night  
just ere the changing of the light  
a dream there came, from the Gods, maybe,  
or Melian's magic. She dreamed that she  
heard Beren's voice o'er hill and fell  
'Tinuviel' call, 'Tinuviel.'"


	4. Southfarthing

Hardbottle was winter in her tweenaged years. Summer, spring, fall – no matter, Hardbottle was winter. It was slate. Lobelia walked the confines of the farm, stones grating underfoot, squeezed the milk from reluctant goats, felt the narrowness of things – water, wind, roads, looks, all sharp with narrowness.  
  
Then came Southfarthing – for an aunt's funeral albeit – but she recalled how the jolting rumble of wagon wheels softened. The light changed, and when she stepped down, she felt the earth warm between her toes.  
  
The Longing in her turned southerly, a groaning of unseen stones yearning for more, for broader, gentler, more…

* * *

**Notes**  
  
1\. Day 4: Card: The Empress. From Wikipedia: "The Empress is mother, a creator and nurturer. In many decks she can be shown as pregnant. She can represent the creation of life, of romance, of art or business. The Empress can represent the germination of an idea before it is ready to be fully born."  
  
"She is the Queen of Heaven, as shown by her crown of stars. She is the Great Goddess, the consort of the dying god. She's associated through her cross sum (the sum of the digits) with Key 12 The Hanged Man, the Dying God, her Son (or daughter) and Consort, who dies at Autumn Equinox or Winter Solstice, and is reborn with Winter Solstice, Spring Equinox, or Beltane."


	5. Apokatastasis panton

He is –   
the first glass-maker, the first to love the density of things in his own image.  
  
He is –   
the snake who eats his tail, the self-consuming Flame.   
  
He is –   
the Sieve-lader, who would carry the ocean; the bat scryer, and the deaf singer.   
  
He is –   
the geometer who measures the heavens with a square circle, and One is his number.  
  
He is –  
the thrice judged, thrice damned, the Dweller in the Night.   
  
And yet... he is – and can become.  
  
For he was First, and will be Last to walk upon the earth and know himself: Beloved.

* * *

**Notes:**

  
1\. Day 5: Card: The Emperor

2\. _Apokatastasis panton_ : the doctrine that all that is, is capable of redemption.


	6. Apokalypsis

Some have said that the vision ceased ere the fulfillment of the Dominion of Men; wherefore, though the Music is over all, the Valar have not seen as with sight the Later Ages.  
  
Yet each Power hears Ilúvatar's Word, according to nature: Manwë heareth therefore as governor, and Námo as judge. Even Morgoth, even he heareth, though he understandeth according to his darkness...  
  
With what ear did Nienna hear, when she rose singing before the Doors of Night, and cast them down, revealing the emptiness beyond? Even Námo knoweth but her words:  
  
"Behold the glory of the Gifts of Men!"

* * *

**Notes** :

1\. Day 6: When Archetypes Meet: Emperor and High Priestess

2\. _Some have said that the vision ceased ere the fulfillment of the Dominion of Men; wherefore, though the Music is over all, the Valar have not seen as with sight the Later Ages._ \- The full quotation is:  
  
"And some have said that the vision ceased ere the fulfillment of the Dominion of Men and the fading of the Firstborn; wherefore, though the Music is over all, the Valar have not seen as with sight the Later Ages or the ending of the World" - "Ainulindalë," _The Silmarillion_ , 9. Reason for snips? Word count.


	7. Night Bloom

'Tis like descending into winter again – harder than Hardbottle, colder, leaner. Lobelia won't sit at first, but stands defiant, awaiting Lotho and release.  
  
He never comes.   
  
Slowly she slides down her umbrella 'til she's on the floor. Time passes. In the darksome silence, old mathoms whisper about the hands they've known, asking her: "Who left you?" 'til she vomits the stones to answer.  
  
Everyone left her, for she left everyone; too late, epiphanies –   
  
"Lobelia!" Light flares, blindingly, but a brown, misshapen, kindly hand draws her forth.   
  
"Who...?" She stops, amazed.  
  
Frodo Baggins smiles. "'Tis past time you came home, cousin."

* * *

**Notes** :

1\. Day 7: Card: The Pope/Hierophant


	8. Right Neighborly

He returns to Crickhollow in October. The door's fixed, Fatty tells himself, and there's Frodo's left-behinds...  
  
October stretches a long cold 'til the March ground-breaking, when comes trouble. Landlord Lotho claims tenant rights. _Tenant **wrongs**_ , Fatty grumbles, sending money to help as can 'til May, when Lotho's ruffian arrives with a deed...  
  
Quicker than thought, Fatty's down that lane, walking stick upraised, yelling after him.  
  
But whither afterward?  
  
"In Scary," neighbors advise, "there's folk like you."  
  
There's Smith Wickle, at least, to welcome him.  
  
"I don't want this," Fatty warns.  
  
Wickle laughs. "Nobody does!"

* * *

**Notes** :

1\. Day 8: Card: The Lovers


	9. Homoousios

Tis dusk in Nottamun Town, but a crowd's gathered before the gate.  
  
Outside totters a filthy wastrel – wild, naked... singing. Singing like a string-loose lute.   
  
"'Tis plague," someone says, turning to the old priest. "Send him hence, Father!"  
  
Fear is on the air – the same fear, Father Jeremiah thinks, that fed betrayal long ago. Still, the souls of men are yoked to two horses, one black, one white, that strive ever against each other, and tonight he feels their striving. Long he stands listening, fates beyond his ken hanging in the balance, then:   
  
"I will go out to him."

* * *

**Notes:**

1\. Day 9: The Chariot _  
2\. Homoousios_ : "one in being" or "the same nature"  
3\. _Still, the souls of men are yoked to two horses, one black, one white, that strive ever against each other_ \- classic description borrowed from Plato's _Phaedrus_ , 253d-255a


	10. Unbound

Forlorn she fell, as stone from sky  
And to the Deathly Court drew nigh  
Where Doom in judgment sat enthroned  
And lingered _he_ , though uncondoned.  
  
"O justice!" cried she first, and told  
Of trials faced, of evils bold   
They'd thwarted and amazed for love,  
Untimely torn from world above.  
  
But Judgment knows no lawful beam  
To life's unscaled measures deem  
All rightly weighed as blow for blow  
So that all reap but as they sow  
  
"Then mercy," pleaded she, and Sang  
As none shall ever Sing again:   
For Pity weighs where scales want:  
O'er peerless love mere law shan't vaunt.

* * *

**Notes** :

1\. Day 10: Card: Justice


	11. Old Growth

With Sharky's demise, Bag End's a-bustle. Cleaning mostly, but as trash goes out, parcels arrive – refugee belongings returning from wherever they'd ended after Fatty fled Crickhollow.  
  
By day, Lobelia stays in her guest room, but she nightly wanders amid the boxes, seeking something to answer an unfamiliar feeling...   
  
The old framed map lies half-hidden, but she draws it out, stares at the world beyond the borders: Eriador, Wilderland, the Lonely Mountain. Wild old lands – older than the Shire by far. Standing there on the yellowing paper, they seem weary, yet... content. They remain and mourn, and bloom anew...

* * *

**Notes** :

1.Next chapter in this cycle: [Caritas.](http://henneth-annun.net/stories/chapter_view.cfm?stid=8125&spordinal=25)

2.Day 11: Card: The Hermit


	12. Stone Under Hill

She met Otho after the funeral. She'd gone for a riverside walk, and there he'd been, and willing. She'd acted. By next summer, Lobelia quit Hardbottle as Mrs. Sackville-Baggins.   
  
Then came Lotho; she'd thought that between Southfarthing and son, she couldn't want, that the stones would settle.   
  
They hadn't.   
  
They'd ground on, grown heavier: her boy, she'd thought, shouldn't want as she had. She'd do anything to spare him, and Southfarthing... it grew weedy in her eyes.   
  
Then she'd seen Bag End – a chance sight put flesh on Otho's coveting, and she'd felt the longing weigh her down again...

* * *

**Notes** :

1\. Day 12: Card: The Wheel of Fortune


	13. Daimon

Warning for violent misuse of religious iconography.

* * *

Water the guest rejects – vomits it forth, breaks the hand with the towel. Afternoon rain, drumming on Nottamun's rectory roof, sends him to the corner, rocking, cursing.  
  
"Get out!" he screams at tear-blurred shapes, then claws his eyes. " _OUT!_ "  
  
"Pity inoffensive eyes!" Father Jeremiah rushes to restrain the madman. "Stop this, friend!"  
  
  
A demon's cry rises; outside, men cower, then run to look. Father Jeremiah lies neck acrook, and the stranger...

"Jesu!" they murmur, staring at the priestly crucifix in one mutilated orb.

~0~

... as a hundred leagues hence, _he_ opens new eyes – again – and wails...

* * *

  
**Notes:**  
1\. Day 13: When Archetypes Fight: Hierophant and Fool.  


  
_2\. Daimon_ : "They are messengers who shuttle back and forth between [gods and mortals]..." (Symposium, 202 e).


	14. Bag End

Each year, Lobelia visits relatives – each year, strung out between Sackville and Hardbottle, juggling harvest and husband, house and babe. One babe only, though. The family – both families – whisper. She knows they think her ill-wed...  
  
But she doesn't want them anyway – she knows what she wants, she thinks, she believes. Bag End! The longing wears her thin, but she'll have it! She and Otho – for Lotho.  
  
And she doesn't notice the deepening silence – that she's more often on the road than in someone's home. That even Otho's grown silent.  
  
Yesteryear's bounty bitters like vinegar, makes triumph a lonely prize.

* * *

  
**Notes** :  
1\. Day 14: Card: Fortitude. Using the Thoth deck equivalent of Fortitude in this case, modern meaning of "lust"


	15. Down-turvy Days

Rebellion never was grand to hobbits, so Fatty's no disappointments to measure, save one – that it's just as uncomfortable as rumored. Scary's no kind garden: the winds're harsh; summer rains slick the rocks. He's all over bruises and barked shins. And he's hungry – dinner isn't what it should be.  
  
But he's learning. By Lithe, he's his very own storehouse raid to boast of, and Scary's folk eat a little easier.  
  
"You're feather to someone's cap now," Wickle says, handing Fatty a warrant:  
  


BURGLAR FREDEGAR BOLGER  
           Fifty pennies.

  
"Top o' down-turvy," Wickle congratulates him.  
  
"Heaven help us all," Fatty sighs.

* * *

**Notes** :

1\. Day 15: Card: The Hanged Man


	16. The Valley of the Shadow

Before the gates of Angband drear  
Three questing souls stand in their fear  
Hound and Man and Elven-kind  
Walk Vairë's weaving, fate to find.  
  
But Fate long hence had been arrayed  
When Beren called, when Lúthien stayed  
When to the Isle of Wolves she went  
When in his arms, she did consent  
  
And love for Beren did confess,  
Eä changed when hearts cried, "Yes!"  
No present word their choice amends  
Eä trembles, history bends:  
  
There's hope that Oath shall stand redeemed  
In present flesh and novel being  
That cuts lifelines to fit the fate  
that, haply willed, cannot abate.

* * *

**Notes** :

1.  Day 16: Card: Death

2\. '"Thrice now I curse my oath to Thingol," he said, "and I would that he had slain me in 'Menegroth, rather than I should bring you [Lúthien] under the shadow of Morgoth."  
  
'Then for the second time Huan spoke with words [...]: "From the shadow of death you can no longer save Lúthien, for by her love she is now subject to it. You can turn from your fate and lead her into exile, seeking peace in vain while your life lasts. But if you will not deny your doom, then either Lúthien, being forsaken, must assuredly die alone, or she must with you challenge the fate that lies before you – hopeless, yet not certain"' - "Of Beren and Lúthien," _The Silmarillion,_ 217.


	17. Into the Storm

Sam's in the stables, filling saddlebags that night.  
  
"Shouldn't you take more?" Fatty asks.  
  
"Don't rightly know," Sam replies. "But Mr. Merry's reckoning'll get us to Bree."  
  
Fatty shakes his head. Merry and Pippin! Adventuring's well enough for them, but Gamgees're Westfarthing to their toes.  
  
"And... your Dad?"  
  
Sam bows his head. "Tell him," he says, finally, "it wasn't curiosity – it's for Mr. Frodo."  
  
"Of course." Fatty nods.  
  
"Anyhow, you'll see to things." Sam returns to packing. "No cause to fear, then."  
  


~0~

Cause creeps in as darkness. Afterward, Fatty wonders whether his stewardship's as ill-founded as Sam's other confidence!

* * *

**Notes** :

1\. Day 17: Card: Temperance


	18. Metaousiosis

Men are free. Beyond the world's confines they range. They will not only what the Song might offer, but shift the Song. Small changes, but time grows them.  
  
Such freedom ages them, wearing away flesh and time. Men aren't elven bodies, nor even those that once _istari_ were. Their deaths are substantial, their lives uncertain.  
  
And he – he's one with them, a mad and deadly note, relentlessly reborn. But mortal freedom is the solvent to all substance that wears on him, wears _in_ him. The alchemy of Ages and untold lives invests him – to what end, none knows...

* * *

**Notes** :

1\. Day 18: Card: The Devil

2\. _Metaousiosis_ : a change of being.


	19. Two Towers

Then to the Isle of Werewolves came  
Lúthien, clad in shadow-hame.  
With Huan guarding 'gainst foe throng,  
she sent her power forth in Song  
  
And shook the earth and tower fey  
And made the bones dance where they lay  
'Til all the walls were tumbled down  
And Sauron groveled on the ground   
  
Yet stone builds not the strongest tower  
And steel hath not greater power  
Than Feänor's sons, crafty-wise:  
Catastrophe in fair disguise.  
  
For Angrist won from Curufin   
will serve but once, betray by end:  
It raises pride, and calls to Doom  
that lovers consigns to their tomb.

* * *

**Notes** :

1\. Day 19: Card: The Tower


	20. Caritas

The door to his darkened room cracks open.  
  
"Come in," Freddy invites. "Don't mind the shutters – my eyes hurt."  
  
Lobelia enters, tray in hand. "I brought tea," she announces, between offering and her old insistence.   
  
But her hesitancy is new, so: "Won't you join me?"  
  
Right answer: Lobelia fairly glows.  
  


~0~

 

When Lúthien's foes about her thronged  
In sleeping coils of spell-bound song,   
She gazed upon the Darksome King,  
Movèd by strange pitying,   
And gave a gift he couldn't spurn:   
_Thy sister speaks and tells thee: Burn_  
With her godfire love for thee  
Bond whence none can e'er be free!

* * *

**Notes:**

1.Next in Lobelia cycle:Your card is: "[The Star.](http://henneth-annun.net/stories/chapter_view.cfm?stid=8125&spordinal=18)"

2\. Day 20: When Archetypes Love: Hanged Man/Hermit and Hierophant/The Devil. Fifty words apiece.


	21. Hardbottle

She's been shedding weight since the lockholes: little by little laying things down, 'til there's naught but her and her ghosts that linger in the halls.  
  
"Where will you go?" Frodo asks, when she tells him she cannot remain.  
  
"Home," she replies.  
  
"Pippin goes to Tuckborough tomorrow, he'll hire a messenger – "  
  
"I meant Hardbottle, Frodo."  
  
Frodo stares. "Hardbottle?" She nods. "You're sure, cousin?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
For she'd rattle about so in Sackville, and of late, she's begun to think there're living ghosts to see to – birthplace ballast to unlade, to remake as something better. Yes, she will to Hardbottle, without regret.

* * *

**Notes** :

1\. Day 21: Card: The Star

2\. I've fudged the timing of Lobelia's return to Hardbottle somewhat. RoTK says she wouldn't return to Bag End, but c'mon - old lady, imprisoned in the dark? It makes sense to stop at a welcoming relative's house and recover a little more before making the journey back to Hardbottle.


	22. The Veil

In Doriath before the sun  
before the moon to sky had come  
wove Lúthien her witchery  
beneath the boughs of great beech trees  
  
The thoughts of earth and wind she drew  
and, hands to heaven, starlight's, too  
And Maia-like in dance she vied  
To bind the earth unto the sky  
  
In one great whole, by dance sustained.  
Where'er she passed, her vision reigned  
Unbroken, boundless harmony  
Veils the night beneath the trees.  
  
The sun and moon made but misstep  
She danced them into her spell-net  
Until one came who, like lodestone,  
Did show true north: the spell's undone.

* * *

**Notes** :

1\. Day 22: Card: The Moon


	23. New Day

Someone got his fifty silver after Brockenbores. Fatty just hoped they brought no joy, as days melted into the lockholes' seamless night. He'd about believed he'd become a shadow himself when rescue arrived.  
  
Pippin visited afterward. "Well, who's this Burglar Bolger they talk about? Do I know him?" he teased.  
  
"No," Fatty said. "I don't think so. And he's gone now – burglars don't do well in the Shire, you know." A pause. "I'm glad it's over."  
  
"Not quite – there's work aplenty still. What's needed," Pippin mused thoughtfully, "is a _Builder_ Bolger. Do you know any?"  
  
Fatty smiled. "I just might!"

* * *

**Notes** :

1\. Day 23: Card: The Sun


	24. Mania

Silhouetted men about trash-can fires draw fearfully together as he passes. They know him – twenty years he's wandered these blighted streets, an unquiet presence, wrecked by more than poverty. There's a darkness riding in him, and they turn away.  
  
They've reason, perhaps – who knows what he does when he's asleep? His dreams might – but they're bloody nightmares to shame his daytime rages. They sit heavy, like beasts desiring, for there's _memory_ in them...   
  
Rimed in his filth, he goes among the forgotten, haunted by faces with all the same eyes – by voices with all the same cries.  
  
"Tell your fortune?" wheezes the half-blind madwoman perched amid garbage, and turns a resurrection.   
  
He ignores her, would pass by, but she rises from her trash-bag throne. "The angel," she, persistent, rasps; "She comin'!"   
  
Her hand catches his. 

_No!_

His darkness shrieking descends, and he throws her aside – then stoops, snatches, slams her into a wall. Her eyes go white in her head, a wet-dark aureole spreading behind her dreads.  
  
"Leave me!" he snarls – to himself, to her, warning and rejection commingled in confusion.   
  
But she remains – dirt-crusted fingers dug into his sleeve, she pants, lips twitching, "Angel... she comin'..."  
  
There's something on her face when she blinks, and he, foreboding, touches it – wet, stinging not sticky. Tears. She's weeping as she's smiling as she's dying, and she's _looking_ at him...  
  
It's a fist through his chest, that wet-eyed, laughing look. His legs buckle, pitch him to the pavement, bewildered, stunned. He's gasping like a half-drowned sailor and he can't catch his breath, can't catch his breath.  
  
"Help," he mouths, stretching his hand to the one hand that wouldn't take rejection. But there's no life in it now; prostrate beside her, he succumbs to dizzying night.

* * *

**Notes**  
1\. I'm going with the alternate name "angel" for this card, rather than judgment.   
2\. Unfortunately, I couldn't get this part of Melkor's story done in under 300 words.


	25. Catharsis

He dreams of the angel. She pours her tears over his head, and senses long dimmed rouse.

Light pains his eyes. Air burns in his throat, and the music – ! A grand, terrifying sweep, ever-shifting – no theme to set variations.

"It was not so," he breathes, from the dim recesses of dark and ancient memory.

"Behold the glory of the Gifts of Men," the angel answers. She kisses him, then remonstrates: "To the world that is our destiny, Brother, and make right lament."

~0~

He wakes to the taste of salt, to the broken body. Terror-stricken, he flees, staggering – 'til he sees him. There, in the street, hand upraised...

_Make right lament._ He's threadbare in his being – _I can't, I_ can't... _!_.

~0~

The traffic cop startles when the grimy apparition falls at his feet. "What the – ?"

"Save us!" Wild, tear-blind eyes lift, compelling silence, as he confesses wretchedly: "I... I've killed a woman!"

* * *

**Notes** :

1\. Day 25: Card: The World  
  
Thanks to Juno and Aranel for the challenge.


	26. A note about the chapter order

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note from the HASA Transition Team: This story was originally archived at [HASA](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Henneth_Ann%C3%BBn_Story_Archive), which closed in February 2015. To preserve the archive, we began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in February 2015. We posted announcements about the move, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this author, please contact The HASA Transition Team using the e-mail address on the [HASA collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/hasa/profile).

These drabbles (and the tribble and drabble and a half that finish the final cycle) were written for the 2009 Advent Challenge, hosted by Aranel and Juno. This year, the challenge was to write based on the archetypes of the tarot deck, and on three "wild cards," in which two previous cards' archetypes were somehow to cross paths.

For one of these "wild cards," "Caritas," I wrote a double set of encounters: two meetings, between two different pairs of protagonists. Even allowing for the difficulties of straightening out a set of four story cycles that were non-linearly composed, "Caritas" presents a problem. It occurs at different points in each story cycle.

After thinking it over, I decided that "Caritas" does significant developmental work for Lobelia and for Melkor, so I have placed a link in the Lobelia cycle that leads to "Caritas," and added a link to "Caritas" that leads back to the next drabble in Lobelia's cycle. In the case of Melkor, reading in order will lead through "Caritas."

If you want to know what the original order of writing was, that is preserved [here](http://www.tolkienfanfiction.com/Story_Read_Head.php?STid=994).

The cycles in internal chronological order are:

The Bolgeriad: The Fool (Dramatis Personae), The Magician (Smoke & Mirrors), Temperance (Into the Storm), The Lovers (Right Neighborly), The Hanged Man (Down-turvy Days), The Sun (New Day) [and When Archetypes Love (Caritas)]

The Lúthien cycle: The Fool (Dramatis Personae), The Moon (The Veil), The High Priestess (First Freedom), The Tower (Two Towers), Death (The Valley of the Shadow), [When Archetypes Love (Caritas)], Justice (Unbound).

The Lobeliad: The Fool (Dramatis Personae), The Empress (Southfarthing), The Wheel of Fortune (Stone Under Hill), Lust (Bag End), The Pope/Hierophant (Night Bloom), The Hermit (Old Growth), When Archetypes Love (Caritas), The Star (Hardbottle)

The Melkoriad: The Fool (Dramatis Personae), The Emperor (Apokatastasis Panton), When Archetypes Meet (Apokalypsis), The Chariot (Homoousios), When Archetypes Fight (Daimon), The Devil (Metaousiosis), The Angel (Mania), When Archetypes Love (Caritas), The World (Catharsis)

Enjoy the stories! - Dwim


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